30 March 2007

May -June 2004

This is full of doom and gloom, and disturbing facts. Don't blame me if you have nightmares tonight.

There are a plethora of reasons why the end of our life as we know it could come to pass. A coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun, a meteorite of sufficient size, and of course the ever present possibility of nuclear war. Its really a myth that the nuclear age ended in 1989 with the fall of the iron curtain. Missiles are still pointed at Russia, and Russian missiles are still pointed at us. In fact, a documentary a few years ago stated that most missile target coordinates are unchanged. And why not? The theory of M.A.D. still prevails, because it is really an immutable fact. As the expression goes, "the names have changed, but the music is still the same."

The big differences between global thermonuclear war, and a solar event or meteor impact will be that a meteor won't have radiation with it. An event from the sun, if severe enough can cause high radiation levels. But unlike a global atomic war, radiation from a CME will virtually cover the entire earth. And it might actually be worse in some respects than a nuclear war, but not as long lasting.

BILLIARDS IN SPACE

Asteroid and comet threats are perhaps the worst threat planet earth has. The control-freak families who decide everything on earth including wars and world economies, must be frustrated over anything they can't control. Asteroids cannot be bought out, threatened, shot at, kidnapped or intimidated. They just keep on coming like a freight train without brakes. As of this writing, there were 589 asteroids that have been categorized as either continent killers, or earth life killing objects. There are tens of thousands more which are also tracked. The determination is of course, based on their size and mass. Iron is the most common component of an asteroid. One of the big problems, is that there aren't enough full-time astronomers to track them all and look for new ones.

Asteroids are mostly made of iron. This is known from those meteors that make it to earth. And you think an iron skillet is heavy ? Imagine a million of them coming into the atmosphere, at speeds of 14,000 MPH+. Very bad for your car's paint job, and even harder on windows and roofs.

These objects collide with one another in space with an unknown frequency, in ways we do not fully understand or can predict. It is also believed they can cluster together as well. When this happens, radar from earth may not be able to ascertain if one huge asteroid is actually a collection of smaller rocks. Every object has gravity, and in space even very small gravity fields can cause clustering.

SOLAR THREATS

A coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun will if severe enough, will destroy satellites. There are different types of CMEs. Some don't do any damage, yet others can cripple or temporarily stop a satellite from working. A CME at higher energy levels can ionize the atmosphere sufficiently to bring down power grids. One such event happened several years ago in the Quebec area of eastern Canada.

Their grid was down for several days, because the high voltage insulators were arcing (shorting out) and tripping circuit breakers. All that grid operators could do is wait for conditions to improve. And there are levels of severity beyond that, too. Loss of human life is possible because the jet stream could be depressed by the force of a CME, down near the surface of the earth. Normally above altitudes of 30,000 ft, this is not a mild breeze- the jet stream moves at velocities of 200 Mph or more.

So, with all that said, lets look at what the end might be like. The common denominator in all these scenarios, is the end of the infrastructure as we know it. Ever been in an ice or snow storm where you live ? Remember what that was like ? Any open store was packed, where people can be seen grabbing bread from another's hands when it was the last loaf on the shelf..

When people get scared the survival instinct kicks in, like protective programming. Now in our global disaster example we are not talking about a simple storm. In a storm scenario, everyone knows (even the food grabbers in the stores) that in a few days the power will be back on, and all will be well again.

People know they will be able to fill their cars again and continue driving when the effects from a regular storm are over. An ice storm or snow storm are minor inconveniences. Ice storms usually happen right near freezing temperatures, so one can actually do without heat in their home. And of course, everyone will live happily ever after and things will return to normal....

THE IMPACT

Now, lets examine another situation. A meteorite impact on land is far worse in the long run, than one in the ocean. Computer models have predicted what an impact on land will do. It will blast enough dust and dirt into the high atmosphere to block out sunlight for 6-8 months. Originally scientists believed it would last a year, but the impact on plants is what is most important.

An ocean impact forces the water to absorb a large part of the energy. Tidal waves of huge proportions will be generated, but the sun won't be blotted out. But the people living along the coastal areas, will be. Although the loss of life will be in the millions, many scientists believe it won't threaten the very existence of humankind on earth. These tidal waves will be the biggest ever seen in recorded history. Some predictions state these waves can reach up to 100 miles inland. Its very difficult for anyone to imagine a wave one mile high, but it can happen. This wave will wash out everything within its reach. All the coastal cities around the world will be in grave danger of being washed away from such an impact. Its also believed that the resulting shockwave will circle the planet twice. See here for what an earthquake-generated tidal wave can be like.

With an impact on land, three days without any sunlight will cause loss of most ALL plant life. Including trees, crops, grass, plankton...well, you get the idea.

WHAT IT WILL BE LIKE

If you are of the faint of heart or sickened easily, this is your last warning. It gets worse from here.

There will be several kinds of survivors. The first are those who live through the initial event and are happy and well off, because of food and shelter and being in the right place at the right time.

Then there will be those in shock, and that will be replaced by fear later. And then there will be those injured, who may never get medical attention. Hospitals everywhere will either be destroyed, or those still in operation will be swamped with emergency patients. Lines will extend into parking lots and down the road.

Remember that the key word here is survival of the human race. And this one fact will be the driving factor for any surviving law and infrastructure. A ruthless form of martial law will rule. And if the meteor hits land- you will have martial law declared and enforced in near total darkness for months. Worse than any nightmare you can imagine. Get caught out on the streets during curfew, and you will be shot.

In the following sections, we will explore how you will be PLUNGED HEAD FIRST back 200 years without electricity. And unlike a storm where you know the power will be back on at some point- this is worse because IT WON'T BE COMING BACK ON, if at all, for years. And because everyone will know it, panic and desperation will set in.

ELECTRICITY

Recall my mentioning an ice storm ? For those of you have not lived through one, here's what its like if you live in a rural area as I do, where the impact is even greater when power goes out. You quickly find out your not as self-sufficient as you thought.Your well pump won't run without power. Therefore, the only running water you have is what's left in the pressure tank. This is usually only a few gallons. When its gone, its gone. The first time that happened, I created a backup system so our quality of life won't suffer the next time it comes along. If it isn't a summer storm, then it will be a drunk driver hitting a pole, or a power equipment failure at a substation.

Flushing toilets is something people never think about. But without running water, it better be planned and limited. Of course, that creates its own problems. And when the telephone poles come down with the power, the internet and telephones will become a faded memory. Cell phones won't work either. I've been telling people for years now, DON'T just save a link to that important information- PRINT IT OUT. Don't even bother to put in your HD to "read later." Because without power- later will never come. And you can read books without electricity during the day.

APPLIANCES

Open the fridge out of habit- and its dark. The sudden realization of all your food spoiling comes to mind. The news on the car radio is not good- that power will be out for up to a week (for an ice storm or other similar event.)

Have an electric stove? Forget it. Useless. If you have a gas stove, these appliances today all have electric igniters. So the gas on the burner comes on, but it won't light. Matches or a BBQ lighter fixes that. Gas ovens today are designed so the main gas feed won't come on, until the pilot is lit. Do NOT do this, but people manually have lit the pilot down in the broiler, and when the safety sensor gets hot the main burner turns on. This is dangerous if your arm is still inside, so don't do it. Yet these are minor inconveniences compared to other problems. In the case of a global catastrophe, dead appliances will become useless. Like that washing machine and dryer that cannot run anymore.

GASOLINE

Go to the gas station to fill your car. No gas because the pumps don't run without electricity. You can find an open station, just by the long lines at the pumps. Perhaps you won't run out while waiting in line... If so, you'll be pushing your car to the pump. I've always wondered WHY most gas stations don't wake up, and install a generator to keep the pumps running. They could charge $5.00 a gallon, and people will still pay it. The great American love affair with their cars continues. But I won't pay $5.00 a gallon

WOODSTOVES

Gasoline brings us to the "woodstove connection." Why? Because people use gas powered chainsaws to create kindling. Oops- can't run your gas or electric chainsaw can you? You're no better off now than your neighbor with the electric furnace. People think wood will always be available. But what happens when the trees are destroyed?

HOSPITALS

These life saving institutions will be able to function for a while. Most of them are required by law to have backup generators. Remember that up until the mid 1900's, hospitals reused most of what they had after washing and sterilizing. Those days have been replaced by glorious plastic. Use it once, throw it away and bill the patient for it all. Great for preventing the spread of disease as we all know. Bad news when the supply trucks don't come anymore. And there are the drugs that will quickly run out, too. And in the case of real nationwide disaster no matter what country you live in, the military will take control of all of it. It could even come down to euthanasia for patients who have too many injuries.

FOOD

This is the part that really brings people to their knees. How many really know what REAL hunger is? You can only live about three days without food and water. What happens to the body during starvation ? Our bodies are marvels of engineering. There is an automatic survival mechanism inside you. When you don't have gas in your car, it stops point blank. But your body without food goes into survival mode...it begins to use itself to keep your organs functional. It consumes fat first, then muscle. When that runs out..it continues on to other parts of the body. The survival mechanism doesn't stop until the organs shut down. These and other recorded effects were found during semi-starvation testing under controlled conditions, are found at http://river-centre.org/StarvSympt.html

As long as you intake enough fresh water (without parasites - forget that creek, river or lake near your home) you'll live for weeks. But it won't be pleasant. After just a couple days, you begin to hallucinate. You start seeing double and cannot focus. You can even have auditory hallucinations because your brain can't function correctly or focus right. It gets worse from there. It can take a year (or more) for the food distribution pipelines to fill again AFTER the crops come in. What most people don't know, is that supermarkets today operate with little more than THREE DAYS of food in the store. Just go ask one of the local store managers.

Stores *assume* that a truck will always arrive to re-stock the store. And that brings us back to gasoline and diesel fuel - those tractor trailers don't move, unless their two 40 gallon tanks are filled. The fine men and women that drive those rigs are not fools, and are not about to start out on a trip not knowing whether a filling station will be open somewhere.

Now, you haven't lived until you been to a store when an ice storm or blizzard has happened. You reach for that loaf of bread- and someone else will literally snatch it right out of your hand. I've seen this happen. Why? Because the instinct for survival is very strong in humankind. Deep within all of us are animal instincts to live, and when "push comes to shove" people will do anything to live. Even laws won't matter anymore when the survival mode kicks in.

The solution to the food problem is to grow your own. But you will NOT be able to do that outdoors. One main reason is lack of sun. The other is, it will be stolen from you just about the time its ready to harvest. So, gardening outside will be impossible. You will either need to grow it indoors or have enough dehydrated storage to last you for perhaps two years.

If you think you can run to the store fast enough to get what you want, think again. The US Army several years ago, began a quiet planning program for takeover of the stores. The small mom and pop stores they don't care about. Its the big chains that will become food distribution centers. And the men and women assigned to guard and screen store customers will be armed, and will shoot to kill anyone who attempts entry on a day they aren't assigned to come in on. In other words, a strict rationing system.

WATER

Just where does that water in your tap come from if you don't have a well ? ALL treatment plants rely on electricity for the systems they use. They may have backup generators and storage tanks, but at some point, perhaps in a few days or weeks, these will run out. No more baths, dishwashing, cleaning, showers, or even something to drink.

CRIME

Needless to say this will skyrocket. No other film could more accurately illustrate this, than the 60's movie called "Omega Man." If you haven't seen it, go rent it if you can. You will see what cities will become. Sure, there will be the military patrolling the streets in tanks. But that won't be enough. Want proof ? Look at Fallujah, Iraq today. Only one city, and we cannot secure it. Now imagine trying to restore order to all the big cities across the united states.

Bush has said he'll "put foreign troops on the streets." Now that's for a major terror attack. Yet minor, compared to a global catastrophe. Killing for just a candy bar will take place, as people become more and more hungry. Those living, will be envying those that died. They will feel there is nothing to live for, and they may be correct in many ways. The very fabric of society will unravel in just days.

BORDERS

Any country's border is only as good as its defense. Imagine you work for the government, and do border patrol. It doesn't even matter which country. When global catastrophe hits, NO government will stay solvent. Suddenly you will realize that you are just as unemployed as that steel worker from Indiana. What will you do ? Say the heck with it, and go home to your family. The borders everywhere will be unguarded. Millions will cross over into the country and join in the looting and scavenging.

CONCENTRATION/ FORCED LABOR CAMPS

People laugh at this. I took one camp name at random two years ago from a list on the web and paid it a visit. Ft. AP Hill in Virginia (estimated capacity 45,000.). Its no laughing matter when you visit one. These are REAL. And when t hose that are starving go to the government for help, this is their final destination. These camps will exist for several reasons- one to punish looters and those that break martial laws, to organize work groups, and extermination. Look at the great purge of the old Soviet Union. The details about this (purge is a nice polite name for MASS GENOCIDE) are here among many other places on the web. Out with the old, in with the new....slaves, that is.

Think about the country and what it could become because of a global catastrophe- millions of telephone poles down and all the cables. High tension towers flattened. Thousands of water lines and water treatment and sewer facilities destroy ed. There are other plans for the camps according to go vt. documents, including using them as execution centers. And Christians are on the list for pickup among others. Here is a list of camps state by state:

THE DEAD AND WOUNDED

Millions or perhaps billions of unburied corpses and wounded laying everywhere. City buildings will become mausoleums for the unprepared dead. Disease will become rampant, as the plaque from the decaying bodies will spread through animals and insects. It will boggle the mind, just thinking about where to begin. There will be people still alive, so wounded and hurt that death will be welcome to them. They will even beg for the end to come. Who will give it to them ? An injection, or a bullet ?

The military has what they call "portable crematoriums." The question will be - do they have enough of these ? Not likely, because the race against time will be about preventing the spread of disease. There won't be enough body bags for the dead - I'll leave that part out. [...]

A minor rumor has hatched on the Internet that a large and deadly asteroid will strike Earth this fall. Bulletin board discussions cite a 63 percent chance of impact, while concerned readers have e-mailed SPACE.com wondering if it is true.

Astronomers know of no such impending doom.

The rumors are likely rooted in a real event, however. On Sept. 29, 2004 an asteroid the size of a small city will make the closest known pass of such a very large space rock anytime this century.

Computer model based on radar data reveals different views of Toutatis.[...]

The orbit of Toutatis is pinned down with better precision than any other large asteroid known to cross Earth's orbit. Toutatis' 4-year trek around the Sun ranges from just inside the Earth's path out to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid visits us every four years.

This fall, it will zoom by our planet within a million miles, or about four times the distance to the Moon.

That's close by cosmic standards for an object that could cause global devastation . Toutatis hasn't been so near since the year 1353 and won't be that close again until 2562, NASA scientists have calculated. No other asteroid so large is known to have come so close in the past, though accurate tracking of space rocks is a fairly recent, high-tech skill that still leaves wide margins of error for many objects.

Toutatis is about 2.9 miles long and 1.5 miles wide (4.6 by 2.4 kilometers).

Many smaller space rocks have passed by much closer, well inside the Moon's orbit. Other asteroids in the size range of Toutatis have surely navigated that window, too, but were unseen in eras when the skies were not scanned so fully as today.

And throughout history, several asteroids and comets have hit the planet. In fact, an object the size of Mars hit Earth when it was very young, creating the Moon, scientists believe. But experts say the odds of a major collision in any year are extremely small. Any other near-Earth asteroid as big as Toutatis would almost surely be spotted decades or centuries before any possible impact.

The prediction of any such event would make huge news rather than small rumors.

Atlantis, the Great Flood, the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Akkadian culture of Iraq -- what do they have in common? Whether real or imagined, all involve the disappearance of advanced civilizations by unexplained or catastrophic events prior to 2,000 B.C. New clues may explain all these civilization-ending Bronze Age mysteries as the result of an attack from outer space: while still speculative, the clues point to meteors and comets wiping out the "first" civilizations and empires on the planet.

Recent examination of satellite imagery reveals a 3-km crater near the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. This region is historically known as Mesopotamia and formed part of the larger Fertile Crescent -- a region that stretched to the Nile River. Access to water and irrigation techniques led to the rise of many of the first recorded civilizations along the banks of these rivers.

The age of the sediments in the Iraq region indicates a crater age less than 6,000-years old. Mesopotamia was populated 7,000-years ago and many of the ancient civilizations in the area died out 4,300-years ago. This makes whatever formed the crater a prime suspect in disappearance of ancient cultures and the appearance in ancient writings of stories of cataclysmic destruction.

Throughout the world, there are a dozen impact craters that formed within the past 10,000 years. Two large ones formed in Argentina within the past 5,000 years. Because of the extent of the oceans, it is reasonable to believe that for every crater found on the ground there are several under water.

If the craters all formed around the same time, then ancient civilizations world-wide suffered a fate that was once thought to be a problem only for modern society: explosions with the force of hundreds of nuclear bombs destroying settlements locally and affecting climates globally. Analysis of sediments on land and ocean, as well as tree ring data indicates abrupt climatic changes did happen around the time of the crater impacts. And it may not have been a one-time event.

A large comet may have broken up and created a cloud of meteors that the Earth repeatedly passed through every year for a decade. The debris in our atmosphere would have made it hard for the Sun to shine through and caused global cooling.

Comment: What?? Civilisations wiped out less than 6,000 years ago? Were the dinosaurs around then? Is that what they mean? But wasn't that 65 million years ago? We mean, aren't all of our independent and impeccably principled scientists telling us that we have nothing to worry about, that any major earth-wide disasters are thousands, if not millions of years away? Just what is going on here? We seem to be experiencing some sort of new sensation, what could it be? Is it...yes...we think it might just be a disturbance in our complacency Oh my God Imagine that Luckily however, we know better than to believe the alarmist notions of reports such as the above which suggest that the earth periodically experiences cyclical catastrophes.

A small asteroid -- 1-km in diameter -- could ruin the day for one-quarter of the Earth's population if it hit our planet. Bigger space rocks, like the 10-km-wide "mountain" suspected of causing the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65-million years ago, could end civilization altogether. So scientists are eager to learn: What are the odds of a 1-km or larger object striking our planet in any 100-year period? The answer to this question requires knowledge of the size distribution of large asteroids in our area of space and the historical record of collisions with Earth.

Historical evidence let's researchers assume that 10-km "dino-killing" events happen every 100-million-years. Discovering the distribution of asteroid sizes is problematic. At distances of hundreds of kilometers, even a "dino-killer" is dim and hard to spot from Earth.

That's where the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) comes in handy. As a survey to chart the large, faint objects outside our galaxy, it naturally discovers many dim asteroids that float through the field of being imaged. Software automatically detects these asteroids and determines their color signature and distance. Color indicates composition, which determines how much light the asteroid reflects from the Sun. These factors can be used to derive a size estimate for the object.

SDSS categorization of 10,000 asteroids within our Solar System's asteroid belt yields an estimated 700,000 rocks bigger than 1-km. This population of "main belt" asteroids feeds a smaller population of "near Earth" asteroids -- the kind that are a threat to Earth.

Calculations indicate that there is a 1:5,000 chance that one of these will strike the Earth in a 100-year period. This is actually good news because prior estimates placed the odds of such a collision at three times higher. The SDSS odds are also in agreement with a study to be published by the Spacewatch Project at the University of Arizona. That group studied actual near-earth asteroids to reach their conclusion.

Comment: So we have a one in 5,000 chance that one a steroid will hit the earth, well thank the lord That mea ns we can all sleep easy in our beds tonight. Forget the fact that the odds of winning the lottery are 30 million to one, yet someone still wins it every week. Statistics are very useful for confusing the masses and putting them back to sleep.

Utah's Great Salt Lake is teeming with a life form that may turn out to be inhabiting other planets.

This inland sea is home to dozens of species of salt-loving micro-organisms called halophiles that thrive in one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth.

[...] The Salt Lake discovery may have extra-terreristrial consequences. Many scientists have argued for some time that if bacteria can survive such conditions there, then it is quite possible on other planets such as Mars.

Mars link?

As NASA's Opportunity has proved bodies of open water did once exist, the Red Planet may well be home to microbes a lot like the halophiles of the Great Salt Lake.

The space agency certainly thinks so. Suddenly, sample-return missions are back on the agenda and Meridiani Planum is being spoken of as a prime destination to go and fetch rocks for study back on Earth.

MONTROSE — A meteor cruising through the night skies over Montrose on Friday morning couldn't take the atmospheric heat buildup and blew up into pieces, an event that was caught by a digital camera mounted on the roof of Montrose High School.

“It appears to be descending directly down upon the Montrose area,” said Mike Nadiak, earth-and-space science teacher at MHS. Locals might find blackened chunks of the meteorite lying in their backyards or agricultural fields, he said.

“We’re hoping to get the word out to get people to keep their eyes open for possible meteor fragments,” Nadiak said.

A similar fireball exploded above the Black Canyon around Thanksgiving of 2002, Nadiak said, but no fragments of that meteorite were found.

Astronomers announced Thursday the second known asteroid whose orbit is completely inside that of Earth. It supplants Venus as the second rock from the Sun.

Most asteroids orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. But a handful cross the path of Earth on elliptical trajectories. One had previously been found to move completely inside the annual path of our planet.

The newfound rock, named 2004 JG6, is currently between Earth and Venus and orbits the Sun every six months. But its elliptical path takes it well inside the circle of Venus and even inside Mercury's path. On average, it is closer to the Sun than Venus. [...]

Vancouver Police are investigating a bizarre incident early Sunday that sent a woman to hospital.

A car was driving southbound across the Oak Street Bridge around 3 am when the front and back windshields were shattered by an unknown object.

Police say a "small, hard object" hit the window but they aren't sure exactly what it was.

A bullet has been ruled out.

A female passenger was taken to hospital with undetermined injuries.

The bridge was closed to traffic for about half an hour.

Comment: Very strange, we wonder what it was that fell from the sky? Whatever it was, one thing is certain, it wasn't, we repeat, it WASN'T a meteorite. How can we know this? Why because our good scientists tell us that the chances of a large meteorite hitting the earth is somewhere in the millions to one. So if a large meteorite is very unlikely to hit, then of course small ones do not hit either, certainly not the dozens that have been reported by alternative news sites over the past year, some of them called "massive" or "the size of a house". Also, disregard this from a CNN report on September 9, 2002:

"A space rock big enough to cause widespread damage and death will hit the Earth only about once every 1,000 years, but experts say the destruction would be so extreme that nations should develop a joint defense against asteroids. - Such a rock, estimated at 180 feet across, scorched through the atmosphere over Tunguska in Siberia in 1908 and flattened trees across 800 square miles of forest land. No crater was found and experts believe the damage came from atmospheric shock."

The chances of being hit by a chunk of space rock are measured in the billions-to-one. Roy Fausset, 59, had the closest of escapes last month when what scientists now say was a meteorite crashed through his New Orleans home.

I walked through my front door and it was like a mortar bomb had fallen on my house.

Fragments of what could be a meteorite which narrowly missed a 10-year-old boy when it smashed into his driveway would be scientifically tested in Perth, the youngster's mother said today.

Anthony Elliss-Galati saw an odd-shaped object in the sky, heading towards him on Thursday as he played outside his Safety Bay home, about 50km south of Perth. Anthony told his mother Jennifer Elliss he hid behind her car and watched the bird-sized object smash a hole in the driveway and shatter.

"I heard something hit the bitumen and then Anthony came inside and said there were rocks coming out of the sky," Ms Elliss said. "He then handed me a piece and it didn't look like a normal rock - it was dull on the inside and silver on the outside and looked as if it had melted."

If you wait long enough, a piece of outer space itself will come right to you. As Colby Navarro worked innocently on the computer, a rock from space crashed through the roof, struck the printer, banged off the wall, and came to rest near the filing cabinet. This occurred around midnight on March 26 in Park Forest, Illinois, USA, near Chicago. The meteorite, measuring about 10 cm across, was one of several that fell near Chicago that day as part of a tremendous fireball.[...]

Pieces of extraterrestrial rock crash-landed near Chicago after a bolide exploded in Midwestern skies early Thursday morning.

Around midnight on Thursday, March 27, residents of several southern Chicago suburbs were woken up by explosions and crashes. Moments earlier, others who happened to be outdoors in Illinois and neighboring states witnessed a bright meteor exploding overhead, illuminating the sky.

The early morning display of noise and light was produced by a small asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere and broke apart over the Midwest, showering dozens of rock fragments upon homes and other buildings approximately 30 miles south of downtown Chicago.

The explosion heard over Hawke's Bay early yesterday morning was probably caused by a fist-sized fragment of an asteroid entering the Earth's atmosphere, says Carter Observatory astronomer Richard Hall.

Mr Hall said reports that the light was an orange colour suggested it came from a meteor of metallic material. That meant it was probably a fragment of asteroid that had originated from somewhere between Jupiter and Mars, Mr Hall said.

There were "about a handful" of reports each year of meteors of a similar size. Smaller meteors would cause light, but not the sonic boom, he said.

"Every now and then Earth will plough into the path of material left behind by comets or asteroids. There have been a few reports of similar events in the Northern Hemisphere over the last week or so," Mr Hall said.

There was no telling when an asteroid might hit the Earth. Last year, astronomers in America and Europe observed an asteroid with a 10km diameter that narrowly missed Earth.

"If that had hit it would have had the force of a 100-tonne hydrogen bomb," M r Hall said.

Michelle Baines and Michael Stonestreet were probably the closest people to the meteor.

Ms Baines, a flight nurse, and Mr Stonestreet, a pilot, were flying to Wairoa to pick up a patient at about 3.40 am yesterday when the sky lit up.

They were above the ocean about 15km south east of Wairoa when it occurred.

"I thought there must have been a helicopter above us with its light on. We looked up and there were two or three orange things moving through the sky. It lasted just a couple of seconds," Ms Baines said.

The object was "high above us, and between us and the coast" and was travelling in a northerly direction, Ms Baines said.

Ms Baines and Mr Stonestreet were wearing headsets and did not hear anything over the Piper Seneca's two engines.

"When we landed, the ambulance officer told us there was a huge noise. At the hospital they thought something must have hit the top of the building," Ms Baines said.

Jason Vercoe was driving from Taupo to Hastings and was about 4km north of the Mohaka river when the sky lit up

"The whole place lit up. It was kind of like the light a city makes behind a ridge. It was incredible, really hard to describe. It almost made my highbeams useless at 3.30am in the morning. That's how bright it was."

Mr Vercoe, 30, said he leaned over his steering wheel and looked skyward, where he saw a "bright shooting star". His car clock said it was 3.39am.

There were no other vehicles near him when he saw the light, although he had seen several trucks on the road earlier.

"I half thought to stop and pull over to see if they saw it too," Mr Vercoe said.

He found out about the story of the meteor in yesterday's Hawke's Bay Today, after telling his girlfriend of his experience.

"If I hadn't leaned over my steering wheel and seen the star I would have thought there was something wrong with my eyes," Mr Vercoe said.

Poraiti man Robin McKee was having a "fitful night's sleep looking after a child who was sick" when he saw the light.

"It was like a lightbulb had popped in front of my eyes," Mr McKee said.

Trevor Cook, from Napier, heard a "boom sound" and felt his house creak.

"Two thoughts went through my mind. It might have been hooligans letting off a homemade bomb, or as the Carter Observatory suggested, a meteor entering the Earth's atmosphere, and creating a sonic boom," Mr Cook said.

Wairoa senior sergeant Chris Flood said there had been few calls about the event, but "no one's come in with a piece of rock yet".

Comment: Ho hum. Just another large explosion combined with a burst of light in the sky. Happens all the time, right? Well, now it is. Spain and India last year. There was the fellow in New Orleans who found one at home. Remember that old tune from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, "Raindrops keeps fallin' on my head..." First a few drops, and then...

An intriguing rock found south of Fort MacLeod, Alta., has been identified by a University of Calgary researcher as Canada's newest meteorite.

Gerald GoldenbeldMr. Gerald Goldenbeld found the rock in 1992 when he stopped his tractor while baling straw in a field on the west bank of the Belly River opposite the Belly River Buttes. Recently, he sent the heavy, black-and -rust-coloured stone to the U of C, and tests confirmed it is a new discovery and not part of a previously found meteorite. [...]

A meteorite has crashed through the roof of a house in Auckland, much to the surprise of the home' s owners.

Scientists were sceptical about the report but have now confirmed the 1.3 kilogram rock has fallen from space.

It is only the ninth meteor to land in New Zealand.

Its rarity makes it valuable to collectors as well as scientists.

Joel Schiff, from Auckland University, says the circumstances of the meteor's discovery also add to its value.

"Falling through a roof is really an exceptional event that rarely happens, and this is a beautiful large specimen," he said.

Scientists plan to analyse the chemical composition of the meteorite to find out more about where it came from.

Comment: We don't know whether this was the same meteor that passed over a day ago, or whether it is a new one. The other bit of missing information is what period of time they refer to when the article says "It is only the ninth meteor to land in New Zealand." Since it was colonised in the 18th century? Since they started keeping reports, probably at a later moment?

A 1.3kg (2.8lbs) meteorite crashed through an Auckland city home, hitting the couch and ending up under a computer, the Sunday Star Times reported today. The book-sized rock hit Phil and Brenda Archer's suburban Ellerslie home on Saturday morning, leaving a large hole in their roof.

"I was in the kitchen doing breakfast and there was this almighty explosion," Brenda said. "It was like a bomb had gone off. I couldn't see anything, there was just dust."

She thought something had exploded in the ceiling, but her husband saw a stone under the computer and it was hot to touch.

The rock hit a leather couch and bounced back up to the ceiling before rolling under the computer.

The Archer's one-year-old grandson Luca was playing nearby but was unhurt.

"He must have a guardian angel," Brenda said.

Auckland University meteorite expert Joel Schiff said the rock was "a national treasure", but international collectors would offer big money for it.

He said the chondrite type meteor - meaning it was chipped off an asteroid - had probably hit the atmosphere the size of a basketball at 15 kilometres per second before slowing to around 100-200 metres a second at impact.

Meteor enthusiasts will likely be out in force in the coming nights, hoping to catch a glimpse of an on-again, off-again meteor display. Special emphasis will be placed on two specific nights: June 22-23 and June 26-27.

Ironically, the month of June is usually not noteworthy for any major meteor showers.

Yet six years ago, during the final weekend of June 1998, sky watchers worldwide were caught off guard by an unexpected shower of bright meteors an d fireballs.

From Japan, for instance, came reports of meteors that were visible even through heavily overcast skies. Reports from visual observers in other regions suggested that this surprise meteor display produced meteor rates of anywhere from 50 to 100 per hour and lasted more than half a day.

Similar bursts of June meteor activity were noted many decades ago, in 1916, 1921 and again in 1927. Because the meteors seemed to fan-out from a region of the sky near the northern border of the constellation of Bootes, the Herdsman, they became popularly known as the "June Bootids."

Comet bits

It was also in 1916 that the legendary British meteor observer, William Denning, first suggested that these meteors were bits and pieces shed by the Comet Pons-Winnecke, a rather small, dim object and a member of the Jupiter family of comets. Such comets are so-named because they have their aphelia the point in their elongated orbits that place them farthest from the Sun at roughly the same distance of the planet Jupiter.

The orbits of the Earth and the comet were relatively close to each other during the early 20th Century.

In fact, Pons-Winnecke's closest point to the Sun its perihelion slowly shifted from just inside the Earth's orbit in 1916 to just outside it during 1921 and 1927. Astronomers assumed that it was this close proximity between the two orbits that accounted for the enhanced meteor activity seen in those three years.

But since then, due to a series of relatively close encounters with Jupiter's powerful gravitational field, the orbit of the comet has significantly changed.

Since 1921, the gap between the orbits of the Earth and the comet has been gradually increasing, becoming more than 22 million miles (35 million kilometers) by 1998. Because of this large gulf between the two orbits, it seemed logical to believe that any future enhanced meteor activity from Comet Pons-Winnecke would be all but impossible. That argument certainly held up until June 1998. How then, could that meteor shower have taken place with the two orbits so widely spaced?

The answer came from astronomers David Asher of Armagh Observatory in Ireland and Vacheslav Emel'yanenko, of South Ural University, Chelyabinsk, Russia. Their studies showed that the 1998 meteors were the result of meteoroids released from Comet Pons-Winnecke back in the year 1825.

Asher and Emel'yanenko pointed out that the planet Jupiter completes one orbit around the Sun in the same time that it takes the meteoroids shed from Comet Pons-Winnecke to complete two. In other word s, while Jupiter takes 12 years to go around the Sun, the meteoroids from Pons-Winnecke take 6 years; a 2 to 1 ratio. So instead of spreading around the whole orbit, the meteoroids were kept clustered closely together by Jupiter's gravitation.

Computer simulations by Asher and Emel'yanenko also demonstrated that the comet and its ejected particles from 1825 were apparently disturbed by Jupiter in different ways, so that in the ensuing years the comet and the particles that it shed became widely separated from each other.

Ultimately, however, in June 1998, the meteoroids ended up cutting right through the Earth's orbit, producing the unexpected bevy of bright meteors.

Another good shower?

So if the meteoroids that produced the bright 1998 display are still basically moving around the Sun in a 6-year orbit, does that mean that we'll be in for a repeat performance in 2004? Viewpoints are mixed.

Jrgen Rendtel, president of the International Meteor Organization, believes that 2004 could be another good year to look for the June Bootids.

Rendtel points out that on Sunday, June 27 at 01h GMT (which corresponds to Saturday, June 26 at 9:00 p.m. EDT) the Earth should be passing through essentially the very same region of the meteoroid stream as in 1998.

That time would be the middle of the peak activity seen in 1998, but since that display lasted for many hours, observers worldwide should stay alert through Saturday night on into Sunday morning for any unusual or enhanced meteor activity.

On the other hand, David Asher's belief is that little or nothing will be observed, based primarily on the simple argument that unusual numbers of bright meteors should also have been seen in 1992 and 1986, but nothing apparently occurred.

In recent days, a different forecast for the June B ootids has been issued by Jerimie Vaubaillon of the Ins titut de Mcanique Cleste et de Calcul des phmrides, in Paris, France and Russians Sergey Dubrovsky and Sergey Shanov.

Their calculations suggest that the Earth will interact with a swarm of meteoroids that were ejected by Comet Pons-Winnecke at not just one, but several of its past visits to the Sun, most notably in 1819, 1825, 1830, 1836 and perhaps 1875. In addition, the predicted peak for this activity comes several days earlier than Rendtel's suggestion: Wednesday, June 23 at 11h GMT (7 a.m. EDT).

Western North America and the Pacific Ocean will still be in darkness at that time, and are favored with the best possible views. But should the activity last for many hours, then it could be worthwhile to carefully watch the sky from Tuesday night, the 22nd, on until the first light of dawn on Wednesday, the 23rd.

Whether you plan to look for the June Bootids on the night of June 22-23 or again on the night of June 26-27, keep in mind that the constellation of Bootes will be excellently positioned as darkness falls. It will appear nearly overhead and high up in the northern sky and will remain in view through the night as it descends toward the northwest.

Fortunately, the Moon will be a rather wide crescent and will set just before midnight (local daylight time) on the night of June 22-23. It will, however, be more of a hindrance on the night of June 26-27 when it will have increased in brightness to a bright gibbous phase and not setting until after 1:30 a.m.

Close-up photographs of a comet have shattered the belief that these traditional portents of doom are so-called "dirty snowballs" composed of dust and ice.

Pictures taken by a spacecraft that flew within 150 miles of the comet Wild 2 reveal that the subject is a solid chunk of rock with a spectacularly sculpted landscape.

The images taken by the Stardust spacecraft as the comet made its nearest approach last February clearly show that the comet's 20 square miles is covered in broad mesas, craters, pinnacles and canyons with flat floors and sheer walls.

Scientists led by Professor Donald Brownlee, the Stardust's principal investigator at the University of Washington, were prepared for featureless images of an icy surface coated in dust. "It's completely unexpected. We were expecting the surface to look more like it was covered with pulverised charcoal," Professor Brownlee said.

Instead the Stardust photographs - published in the journal Science - depict a mini world scarred by a series of collisions with other space objects over many millions of years. The scientists involved in the mission have identified two kinds of crater on the comet, one with a central rounded pit and a surrounding rough terrain, the other with a flat floor and steep sides.

Two craters look like footprints, and have been named Right Foot and Left Foot. Unlike craters seen on Earth or the Moon, the craters on Wild 2 are virtually devoid of the powdery debris seen scattered around typical impact craters. Professor Brownlee said that was because there is hardly any gravity on the surface of Wild 2.

Comment: We have been saying for years what "scientists" are now accepting as fact. While it is not surprising that governments around the world would seek to keep any foreknowledge of a meteor impact threat out of the public domain, this does not preclude the right that each of us have to read between the lines and open our eyes to the reality of life here on the BBM.

Dispatchers checked with area quarries, which reported no blasting activity.

And no supersonic aircraft were in the skies above Webster County, according to Springfield airport and Fort Leonard Wood officials.

NASA scientist Mike Mumma said the likely culprit was a "sizable" meteor ripping apart as it blasted through the atmosphere at 100,000 mph.

"From the description of buildings and windows shaking, that's a fairly significant sonic boom," said Mumma, chief scientist of planetary research at Goddard Research Center in Greenbelt, Md. "It would have been much larger than fist-sized to make that loud of a noise and generate that much energy. I couldn't speculate how big, though."

Don Yeomans, man ager of NASA's Near Earth Object monitoring program in Pasadena, Calif., said a meteor that shakes homes and windows could have been the size of a small car.

"Statistically we can expect something that size twice a year, on average," he said. "Of course, most of the Earth's surface is ocean so we don't see them that often. Yours is a very unusual event."

Webster County Sheriff's Capt. Robert Brown said the explosion shook the upper floors of the courthouse.

The county's Emergency Management director was contacted, and the courthouse was checked to make sure it was secure, he said.

"We were on standby ready to go if anything really had happened," Brown said.

At the Marshfield Chevrolet Olds dealership, receptionist Lynn Bays said she heard a "big, loud explosion" while sitting at her desk.

"At first I thought it was a big bolt of lightning, but a lot louder," she said. "It was pretty wild."

"I talked to my mother, and she said it really rattled her garage door," Tucker said.

Mumma said those kinds of reports — without the presence of supersonic aircraft — are consistent with a meteor hitting the atmosphere.

"An explosion like that usually occurs when a pressure wave builds up on the front face of the meteor,' he said. "Eventually it blows up into millions of pieces which burn up before they hit the ground."

"That could have been a binary object coming in; two meteors traveling together in space," Mumma said. "Each one would have generated a sonic boom as it entered the atmosphere."

On June 4, Seattle residents got a spectacular view of a meteor breaking apart.

The meteor lit up the sky at 2:40 a.m., and its brilliant glow was captured on dozens of security cameras across the city.

It exploded about 27 miles above Snohomish, Wash., its thunderous blast registering on many area earthquake detectors.

Based on eyewitness accounts and data from the earthquake monitors, officials estimated the W ashington meteor's size to be about the size of a computer video monitor.

Oliver Manuel, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Missouri-Rolla, said it would be a fluke if anyone in Webster County found a piece of Friday's meteor.

The area is rocky and covered by forests, both of which would make finding a meteor fragment difficult.

"Hopefully there will be some meteorite fragments found," he said. "A common misconception is that they're too hot to pick up. But meteors ablate when they come in — their surface melts off faster than it can he at the object. If you find one, you can pick it up."

Finding killer asteroids may sound like the plot of a cheap science fiction movie, but as astronomer Ken Chambers knows it is a very real possibility in the near future.

Los Alamos native Chambers and his colleague, Nicholas Kaiser, presented abstracts on their project, the Pan-STARR Optical Survey Telescope Project, at the American Astronomical Society 204th meeting, which met May 30 through June 3 in Denver.

Chambers is an associate professor at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy and the chief scientist of the Pan-STARRS Telescope #1, which is the prototype telescope for the project.

The prototype will be the first of four planned telescopes that have a very lar ge field of view through which to survey the visible sky every four days. By surveying it over and over, the researchers will be able to detect any potentially dangerous asteroids movement, according to the abstract. The purpose is to identify any asteroids that are on a collision course with Earth, in order to be able to do something to change the orbit of the asteroid before it hits.

The project incorporates the telescope and its data, a camera and a computer.

Chambers said the difference about this project is that they are trying to predict the future.

He explained that telescopes are time machines because they all look back in time. "You are looking into the past because of the speed of light," Chambers said. "When you see the sun, you see it as it was eight minutes ago; Jupiter, as it was 40 minutes ago; Alpha Centauri as it was four years ago."

The colliding of asteroids with Earth can have catastrophic results.

"Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid that was only a few kilometers in size hit the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, which opened the door to evolution and let humans in," Chambers said.

"Every 65 million years, an impact will happen that is big. If it hits tomorrow, there is nothing we can do. But, if we can find one that will hit 100 years from now, you have more warning and you only have to make it change orbit a tiny bit in order to not hit the earth."

Scientists are still discussing different ways to change the orbit. [...]

A detailed analysis of the comet Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt 2") has left ast ronomers astounded at an object that has noknown peers in the solar system.

The comet, examined in a close flyby in January by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, has towering protrusions and steep-walled craters that seem to defy gravity.More than a dozen jets of material shoot out from its insides. Dust swirls around the comet in unexpectedly dense pockets.

Among the bizarre features are two depressions with flat floors and nearly vertical walls that resemble giant footprints. They aren't structured like typical impact craters. The features have been named Left Foot and Right Foot in a new map of the comet, which is roughly 3 miles (5 kilometers) wide.

Only two other comets have been seen up close, but both appeared fairly smooth and were nowhere near so heavily cratered. Nor do the pockmarked surfaces common to asteroids and moons bear much stylistic resemblance to the shapes seen on Wild 2.

"So far, as far as we know Wild 2 is a unique object," said Donald Brownlee, an astronomy professor at the University of Washington and Stardust's principal investigator.

Brownlee told SPACE.com that Wild 2 could represent a unique class of comet. He and his colleague s had expected it to be relatively featureless with a dusty, charcoal-like coating. Instead they found a place riddled with apparently ancient impact craters. Broad mesas and steep canyons stand out clearly. [...]

He suggested the consistency of the comet is something like freeze-dried astronaut ice cream. [...]

"Comets do blow up unexpectedly," Brownlee pointed out, adding that built-up internal pressure and "steam explosions" might be responsible for some of the surface features. [...]

Comet Wild 2 probably gathered itself together 4.5 billion years ago, just after the Sun was born, in a region beyond Neptune known as the Kuiper Belt. [...]

In 1974 it had a close encounter with Jupiter and was thrown onto a new orbit that brings it closer to the Sun. A comet loses material when it approaches the Sun, as solar radiation causes ice from its surface to "sublimate" into space, carring dust and larger particles with it. The process creates a cloud of material that reflects sunlight and creates the familiar head of a comet (scientists call it a coma) and sometimes a tail.

Among the new findings: Wild 2 has lost about 3 feet (1 meter) of its surface since 1974. [...]

Claudia Alexander, a program scientist for Rosetta from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has modeled comets for years. She did not expect the number of jets or their ability to lift the large chunks thought to then break up and create the particle swarms. And she's surprised that the comet is apparently not a loosely cemented rubble pile.

"I would have told you it wasn't going to be like that," Alexander said. "We are astonished and intrigued."

The Spirit rover is looking at a Martian rock unlike anything seen on Earth, with a pitted surface and strange nuggets on the end of stalks.

"I have never seen anything that combines all those characteristics together in the way this does," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, principal investigator for the NASA rovers. "Now, I won't tell you that somewhere on Earth, there isn't a rock that looks like this, but we may be dealing with something uniquely Martian here."

The rock is called Pot of Gold, and it could prove a treasure for Spirit, which is exploring the Columbia Hills in Gusev Crater. A spectrometer reading showed the rock holds hematite, which can form in water.

Seen a strange orange streak moving across the early morning sky recently? Think you've seen a meteor? Well, you're not alone.

North Shore residents have been reporting suspected meteor sightings for the past four weeks, according to the Stardome Observatory at One Tree Hill.

Leonie Anderson spotted "a big orange streak" in the sky about 7.30am yesterday while walking to work in Takapuna with a friend.

"It was thicker at one end and then tapered," she said. "We watched it for about four minutes then it disappeared."

But Warren Hurley of the Stardome said what people had actually seen was a high-flying aircraft moving from southeast to northeast.

The plane and its vapour trail were illuminated by the morning sun, creating the orange effect.

"It looks quite bright. It does look orangey - the same as clouds at sunset. And the fact that it moves across the sky so slowly would eliminate a meteor," Mr Hurley said.

"More aircraft are flying north from Christchurch without stopping in Auckland these days so it's a relatively normal sight."

Comment: Oh, what a relief Here we thought that all these reports of fireballs and meteors that we have been tracking were actually REAL - and yet it turns out there was a rational explanation all along. It's just vapor trails from airplanes that reflected the sunlight. Of course, one might stop to think that many sightings have occurred at night. In the case of evening sightings, obviously the only rational explanation is the light of Venus reflecting off of airplane vapor trails. The light appears orange due to atmospheric distortion and swamp gas, of course...

In response to my recent article Why I Fear Toutatis, I have received numerous emails from people who claim to have seen unusal fireballs and/or meteor activity in the United States over the past few weeks.

In addition to these email communications, I have found evidence of censorship in the news of fireballs, meteors, and unexplained celestial phenomena.

These recent developments are leading me to an inexorable conclusion:

People who control the news are vary wary of current cosmic activity, and are deeply concerned about the effect this will have on public consciousness. [...]

After discovering [numerous] instance of possible CENSORSHIP of cosmic impacts, I did a word search on Google news for "meteor"...and I found this story, from June 19th, of a CAR-SIZED meteor reported in the state of Missouri. A meteor the size of a car is a MAJOR story...particularly when one considers that a meteor (or bolide) as small as the one in ashington three weeks ago made national headlines. What is going on? [...]

Dispatchers checked with area quarries, which reported no blasting activity.

And no supersonic aircraft were in the skies above Webster County, according to Springfield airport and Fort Leonard Wood officials.

NASA scientist Mike Mumma said the likely culprit was a "sizable" meteor ripping apart as it blasted through the atmosphere at 100,000 mph.

"From the description of buildings and windows shaking, that's a fairly significant sonic boom," said Mumma, chief scientist of planetary research at Goddard Research Center in Greenbelt, Md. "It would have been much larger than fist-sized to make that loud of a noise and generate that much energy. I couldn't speculate how big, though."

Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object monitoring program in Pasadena, Calif., said a meteor that shakes homes and windows could have been the size of a small car. [...]

Dr Bevan says it will be difficult to find where the meteorite landed.

"Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be as many observations, so actually pinning down where the object landed might be a bit difficult and in that area, the vegetation might mean searching for it would be difficult," he said.

Comment: Okay folks, step back, nothing to see here. Just ignore those meteorites that seem to be bombarding earth, you might miss the next episode of Buffy.

Life would not have a chance on planets nearest the Earth’s solar system because of a blizzard of comets and meteors, astrono mers have concluded after taking a close look at the star Tau Ceti.

Tau Ceti, 12 light years away, probably has more than 10 times as many objects flying around as our own solar system does, scientists at the Royal Astronomical Society said.

"We don’t yet know whether there are any planets orbiting Tau Ceti, but if there are, it is likely that they will experience constant bombardment from asteroids of the kind that is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs,"said Jane Greaves, lead scientist on the project.

"It is likely that with so many large impacts, life would not have the opportunity to evolve."

Comment: What if life in such a environment were to evolve and perish cyclically, with the bombardment of comets bringing each cycle to a close? Would that not be a realistic possibility? What if it were true for our solar system?...

See Laura's new book "The Secret History of the World" for all the details. As one European Professor noted: "It may well be the most important book ever written".

A team of astronomers have found a colossal black hole so ancient, they're not sure how it had enough time to grow to its current size, about 10 billion times the mass of the Sun.

Sitting at the heart of a distant galaxy, the black hole appears to be about 12.7 billion years old, which means it formed just one billion years after the universe began and is one of the oldest supermassive black holes ever known.

The black hole, researchers said, is big enough to hold 1,000 of our own Solar Systems and weighs about as much as all the stars in the Milky Way.

"The universe was awfully young at the time this was formed," said astronomer Roger Romani, a Stanford University associate professor whose team found the object. "It's a bit of a challenge to understand how this black hole got enough mass to reach its size."

Romani told SPACE.com that the black hole is unique because it dates back to just after a period researchers call the 'Dark Ages,' a time when the universe cooled down after the initial Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. That cooling period lasted about one billion years, whe n the first black holes, stars and galaxies began to appear, he added. The research appeared June 10 on the online version of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Invisible to the naked eye, black holes can only be detected by the radiation they spew and their gravitational influence on their stellar neighbors. Astronomers generally agree that black holes come in at least two types, stellar and supermassive. Stellar black holes form from collapsed, massive stars a few times the mass of the Sun, while their supermassive counterparts can reach billions of solar masses.

A supermassive black hole a few million times the mass of the Sun is thought to sit at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, and some of the largest supermassives seen date have reached up to two billion solar masses, researchers said. [...]

PASADENA, California -- NASA's Cassini space probe has already aided scientists to make a second discovery about Saturn, even though the craft is still a day away from beginning its main mission.

Signals detected by the probe show that Saturn's natural radio emissions are more like the sun's than the Earth's, and that a Saturnian day is not as short as once thought. [...]

NASA announced the radio discovery on Monday, saying that it was based on data returned from the probe over the past year. The data showed that Saturn's radio rotational period -- a measurement often used to determine the length of a day on a planet -- was nearly six minutes longer than when measu red by the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1980 and 1981, respectively.

Scientists say this means it's highly likely that Saturn's radio emissions change depending on when and where they are measured, like those of the sun. By contrast, the period of Earth's radio emissions are fixed. They have ruled out other options, like malfunctioning equipment on the Voyager probes, or the possibility that Saturn's physical rotation has slowed over the years, they said.

"Although Saturn's radio period has clearly shifted substantially since the Voyager measurements, I don't think any of us could conceive of any process that would cause the rotation of the ent ire planet to actually slow down," said University of Iowa space physicist Don Gurnett, principal investigator for the Cassini Radio and Plasma Wave Science instrument. [...]

NASA hopes it can come up with a different solution to the problem, and uncover the mystery of what is causing the radio emissions to change, sometime during the next four years as Cassini continues to spy on Saturn and its moons. "We will be able to unravel the puzzle, but it's going to take some time," said Gurnett. [...]

Cassini has been hurtling through space on its way toward Saturn for the past six and a half years. On Wednesday evening, mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will fire one of Cassini's engi nes, allowing the spacecraft to slip through the space between two of Saturn's rings. The maneuver will put Cassini in orbit around Saturn, where it will remain for the next four years, studying the planet, its rings and its moons. [...]

Comment: Let's get this straight. First they say "They have ruled out ... the possibility that Saturn's physical rotation has slowed over the years," followed by "I don't think any of us could conceive of any process that would cause the rotation of the entire planet to actually slow down...&quo t; which means that they really haven't produced any facts that it is not an actual slowing of the rotation; they just believe it is impossible.

Question: what IF Saturn IS slowing down? If so, what could cause such a phenomenon? After all, significant changes in the weather on Jupiter have been noted recently, as well as an astonishing number of new moons. Do we really think that such changes in the elder brother planets of our solar system are happening in isolation? What if the real cause of all the weirdness on the BBM is related? If so, what could be causing it? Does Something Wicked This Way Come?